212 Natural History. [Chap. III. 



The fluid which covered the mud became agitated 

 by the flux and reflux to which it was subjected 

 by attraction, and the mud was variously and vio* 

 lently moved- This agitation increasing, part of 

 the mud became exposed, and dried. Continents 

 were thus formed. The materials of the earth being 

 compact and solid, the sea continually excavated 

 its bed; and from the continual retreat of the sea> 

 and the excavation of the earth, this globe is 

 doomed to be at last so perfectly undermined as to 

 produce a confluence of the sea from hemisphere to 

 hemisphere. The earth becoming thus hollow, and 

 its shell being gradually extenuated, will at length 

 fall to pieces; a new chaos will be formed, the fa- 

 bric will be again revived, as at first; and a pe- 

 riodical dissolution and renovation will take place. 

 ■ — Le Cat professed to believe the sacred scriptures, 

 and discovered an anxious desire to show that his 

 theory was consistent with them; but the best 

 judges among his contemporaries, and since that 

 period, have pronounced it equally inconsistent 

 with the structure and phenomena of our globe, 

 and with the Mosaic history. 



About the year 17^0 appeared the Telliavied of 

 M. Maillet, a French writer of some note. He 

 taught, that the earth was once wholly covered 

 witli water, which, by means of strong currents, 

 raised in its bosom all those mountains which dif- 

 ferent countries bear on their surface ; that this 

 water has been ever since gradually diminishing^ 

 and will continue to diminish until it shall be quite 

 absorbed ; that our globe, being then set on fire, 

 will become a sun, and have various planets re- 

 volving in its vortex, till its igneous particles bemg 



